


The Fall Back

by givemeunicorns



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:34:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how many battles Steve fights, he always leaves feeling like Atlas. Sam helps keep the weight from crushing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brassmama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brassmama/gifts).



> This one is for brassmama.tumblr.com for the Sam/Steve exchange! Hope you enjoy dear!

Steve was built for battle, literally. He'd been designed, engineered for soldiering on. But there was always a moment, when the dust settled, that he felt his knees give, the weight of the life he was created for weighing to heavy on his shoulders. He was Atlas, carrying a world he'd never thought he'd live to see.

He'd hoped that what happened in Sorkovia would change something, that the creation and subsequent destruction of Ultron would make things different. I didn't, not in the way Steve hoped it would. He hadn't stopped fighting a war since the day he enlisted, he was starting to think that he never would.

Pockets of Hydra still existed, using gifted and enhanced people, many of them kids really, to do their dirty work. More of Fury's secrets came to light too, a new SHIELD headed by a very not dead Phil Coulson and his team of extraordinary individuals. Steve's new team was ready for the fight, and they had back up, but that didn't stop Hydra from unleashing inhuman hell down of a city street at three o'clock on a Tuesday because they'd been cornered. Buildings and homes were still destroyed, people still died. And when the dust settled, Steve still felt the weight of all that pain in his chest, the echo of screams in his head that never really went away.

Under the too bright florescent, Steve felt every bit of his ninety six years. They'd pulled a lot of survivors out of the rubble today, people who would fall asleep to nightmares of what they'd survived today. Steve ran a tired hand down his face. It came away bloody. Too many people would not live to have those nightmares, too many lives had been lost. It wasn't Steve's first rodeo, but it never really got easier. It didn't stop haunting him. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the hospital window. Down below, somewhere, the rest of his team was still cleaning up. Wanda, Natasha and Bucky were operating as clean up crew. Rhodey and Nick were inside the room across the hall, speaking with the powers that be, acting as they always did, as damage control. Soon, they'd need Steve to come in and play face, but they knew how to play the politics. That was a game he'd never been very good at.

Outside the window, something swooped low in the fog of settling dust, and Steve saw the red glow of of Sam's wings, felt the small relief spread through his chest. Sam had been a port in a storm for a long time, a best friend in a new world who understood that 75 years could change a lot of things, but it didn't change everything. Sam had walked out of his old life and into Steve's the moment he'd had a chance. Not that he didn't love his job at the VA, but Sam was like Steve, he had a warrior's soul and Sam had tasted the sweetness of flight in a way almost no other person on Earth had. Stillness didn't suit him.

Steve still wasn't sure the exact moment their friendship had turned into something else. With Bucky falling in love was something he'd grown into, Bucky had always been there and Steve had always loved him. With Peggy it had been instant, Peggy wasn't just the woman he'd always dreamed of being with, she was the person he'd always dreamed of being. She'd chosen him and he'd chosen her and time had torn that from their hands. Sam was different, same wasn't just the now, he was everything Steve missed in the ice, molded by events Steve was still trying to catch up on. But at the time, Sam was the future, Sam was undoing the problems, cataloging the damage, that war didn't people. Sam knew dealing, and the healing, was hard and messy, and he didn't begrudge Steve for being his own specific sort of mess.

He knew Sam was cute the day he'd first seen him running on the Mall. Steve had worked up the courage to jokingly lap him, hoping a little competitive ribbing could lead to an actual conversation. Natasha was always telling him he needed me friends, some one he could get beers with. Sam had seemed like a good shot. Then Sam had looked right at him and asked “It's your bed, right?” and something had unraveled in Steve's chest. There was 75 years between him and Sam, lifetimes. To most people Steve was a face from a history book, from a newspaper, from a comic book. To Sam Wilson, Steve was a soldier who didn't know how to sleep at night with out the threat of a fire fight.

Steve had fallen for Sam hard and fast. Sam was handsome, has was compassionate, he was fun. Sam was the sort of person Steve could trust with his darkness, with his insecurity, his damage, his fear, because Sam knew what it was like to come back home a stranger, knew the right questions to ask but also when not to ask them. He was wild and confidant in a way that Steve found infectious. He'd resigned early to having a crush on his best friend, so no one had been more surprised than Steve when Sam had kissed him the first time. They had been at the Tower, Pepper's birthday party, standing out in the balcony enjoying a beer and little night air. Leaning against the railing, Sam had asked again if Steve was moving back to Brooklyn. Bucky already had. Steve had shaken his head, still not sure he could ever make the old neighborhood home again. Sam had grinned, leaned over and kissed him, easy as anything, and over so fast Steve wasn't sure it had happened anywhere but in his head.

“Well, you could always come back to D.C.,” Sam had grinned, pushing of the railing and throwing Steve one of his daring grins.

They'd spent the night in Sam's hotel room, doing everything but sleeping. That had been a week ago, before they'd woken to the call to suit up. Since then it had been snatched half kisses in the corner, the brush of hands or bumped shoulders and sly smiles in the hallway. Natasha teased them mercilessly and Bucky was constantly fixing their affections with a grin and a raised eyebrow but they understood. What was the point in hiding when they might die tomorrow? Steve shook off the thought, he had a lot more to do before the day was over. There wasn't time to day dream about Sam's hands on him.

Rhodey was standing at the door, wearing the sympathetic smile of a man who knew exactly what Steve was about to do and how much he was going to dislike it. The new oversight council was like the old in many ways, people with power and money, more concerned with the fall out than the condition of the city's people. But Steve nodded, offered his yes sirs and no ma'ams, arms held behind him like a good soldier. He stood his ground when it was called for, and he caught Fury's almost smile from the far side of the room. It bolstered him, Fury's respect was no small thing. Still, politics, damage reports, a good long chastising about how he was a PR nightmare always made him feel strung out and rangy. Once dismissed, he couldn't get out of the room fast enough. He jerked the door just hard enough it groaned on it's hinges.

“Rough day at the office?”

Sam was leaned against one of the stark walls, skin molted with a layer of chalky dust. His goggles were pushed up on top of his head, but his wings were noticeable absent. Arms crossed over his chest, fixing Steve with that smile that, even bone tired as it was, it made Steve feel more solid.

“You could say that,” Steve breathed, running a hand through his hair.

Sam pushed off the wall and Steve was already movie, meeting him more than half way, pulling Sam into his chest, too tight and he knew it but Sam didn't complain. Sometimes you just needed to hold someone, sometimes you just needed to be held. Steve had a long time without that. Sam's arm wrapped around his back, hand settling on the back of Steve's neck, solid and warm and real. Steve pressed his face into the bend of Sam's neck and just breathed, blood and dust on their skin be damned.

“When this is over we're going someplace nice. Like Hawaii. None of this disaster movie bullshit eve happens in Hawaii,” Sam mumbled into his shoulder.

Steve laughed, for what felt like the first time in days.

“When this is over, something else will happen, some other threat will come around. We can't go anywhere Sam, we can't be anyone but, this” Steve huffed, peeling himself away from Sam with no small bit of effort, waving an arm at the destruction outside.

Sam shrugged.

“Probably,” Sam offered, catching Steve's arm before he pulled away, “Doesn't mean when shouldn't try. Doesn't mean we're not still people.”

Sam reached up, wiped at the trail of blood below Steve's nose with his thumb. Steve leaned into the touch without meaning to.

“Sometimes I don't know if I have it in me to keep trying. I'm tired Sam.”

“You should be. What you do, what we do, it's the kind of work that breaks you. That's why you've got us, you've got me. We're a team. Besides, you're mine now and I got you me, disaster movie bullshit or no disaster movie bullshit.”

Steve nodded, leaned in and kissed Sam's mouth, cradling the other man's jaw in his hands. Too hard and too fast but Sam smiled against his mouth. Steve knew his mouth tasted like blood and dust, but he didn't care. He breathed in Sam, tasted him in his mouth, let Sam do the same. A long moment passed before Sam pulled back to breathe, a hand on Steve's chest before he could devour him.

“Damn,” he sighed, forehead leaned against Steve's, “You can't do shit like that when we're on the clock. Makes me want to drag you off to a closet or something. Jesus.”

Steve grinned, kissed the corner of Steve's mouth.

“Save it for Hawaii, Wilson,” he shot back.

 


End file.
